The present invention relates to improvements in arranging data for a video display. In particular, it has applicability to upgrade existing fuel dispenser to permit video displays to be incorporated in the fuel dispensers.
Gilbarco, Inc., of Greensboro, N.C., the assignee of this application, has for several years sold a line of gasoline dispensers under the trademark THE ADVANTAGE, having what is called CRIND characteristics. CRIND is an acronym for "Card Reader IN Dispenser" referring to the fact that the dispenser located on the service station island can have a credit card or debit card inserted into it. The CRIND will read the card and transmit information concerning the card to a site controller. The site controller will then transmit the information to a credit or debit card verifying authority to obtain an authorization to charge a fuel transaction to the associated account. The CRIND also receives data from a fuel pump in the dispenser and displays data on conventional readouts on the dispenser housing. Further, it generates messages for a single line LED display to instruct the user how to proceed at the various steps of the transaction. In addition, the LED display might show simple greetings or other commercial messages to a customer.
It would be desirable to incorporate a television-like screen in a CRIND dispenser so that the messages which can be communicated to the customer can be considerably more complex than those capable of being displayed on single line LED display. However, a considerable number of service stations already are equipped with CRIND-type fuel dispensers which, while capable of generating versatile messages, cannot generate messages at a reasonable rate to take advantage of the flexibility afforded by full video screens.
Accordingly, in order to display elaborate messages on the video screen in varying fonts or varying arrangements on the screens, varying coloring or the like, an extensive amount of existing fuel dispensing equipment would have to be replaced. This would be prohibitively expensive and wasteful.
Therefore, there remains a need in the art for a video display controller capable of receiving simple, terse messages and constructing from them relatively elaborate screen displays.
The primary emphasis in this application will be on the use of a technique in a fuel dispenser, but it should be understood that the technique is not limited to fuel dispensers, but could be adapted to a wide variety of video display installations in which only relatively simple communication links to the video display are available. Other samples would be signals transmitted by carriers of limited band width, or the like, so that the data transmission rate is not great, but relatively elaborate video images can be displayed.